ON THIS DAY
April 12, 2019
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE APRIL 12, 1952
THE London Gazette announced last night that the Queen declared ‘she and her children shall be styled and known as the House and Family of Windsor, and that her descendants shall bear the name Windsor’. There had been speculation over whether the Royal Family would take the name of Windsor, Mountbatten, or even Edinburgh.
APRIL 12, 1979
MARGARET THATCHER last night struck to the heart of the issue that may decide whether she wins the General Election: The end of union abuse of power. Mrs Thatcher told her adoption meeting in her Finchley constituency: ‘The Conservative Party will not turn back from the commitments we have made.’
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
CLAIRE DANES, 40. The American actress (right) was called ‘ the Meryl Streep of her generation’ by director Baz Luhrmann. Danes, who is married to English actor Hugh Dancy, starred in TV spy thriller Homeland. Fans included then-U.S. President Barack Obama, who admitted watching it in the Oval Office while pretending to work. Danes decided to act at five, after seeing Madonna on television, later saying: ‘I understood that performing could be one’s vocation.’ ANDY GARCIA, 63. The Cuban-born actor, star of The Godfather: Part III and The Untouchables, says he has turned down several subsequently Oscar-winning parts ‘because I didn’t want to spend time away from the family’. He hates the idea of being a sex symbol and when asked by a female casting director to take off his shirt in an audition, he said, ‘you first’, before leaving.
BORN ON THIS DAY
JEREMY BEADLE (19482008). The London-born TV prankster (right) host of Game For A Laugh, Beadle’s About and you’ve Been Framed, was expelled from school and appeared at Bromley juvenile court for stealing a £1 note from his teacher’s bag. He was once voted the second most hated man in Britain — behind Saddam Hussein.
TOM CLANCY (1947-2013). The U.S. thriller writer was best known for creating Jack Ryan. Clancy’s first novel, The Hunt For Red October, became a hit after President Ronald Reagan received it as a Christmas present and called it ‘the perfect yarn’.
ON APRIL 12 . . .
IN 1954, Bill Haley and the Comets recorded Rock Around The Clock — the biggest-selling single of the 1950s in the UK.
IN 2010, the Vatican’s official newspaper L’Osservatore Romano praised The Beatles’ ‘ beautiful melodies’ and said of John Lennon’s claim they were ‘more popular than Jesus’: ‘It wasn’t that scandalous.’
WORD WIZARDRY GUESS THE DEFINITION: Doula (1980s)
A) Money, cash. B) Grief; suffering. C) A companion trained to help a new mother during childbirth. Answer below
PHRASE EXPLAINED
Whip round: Contributions of money from a group; coined in Thomas Hughes’ 1861 novel Tom Brown At Oxford. In officers’ messes, those wanting more wine put in a sum of money called a whip.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
Deprivation is for me what daffodils were to Wordsworth. Philip Larkin, English poet (1922-1985)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHAT did the hamburger call his daughter? Patty.
Guess The Definition answer: C.